Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 01 - The Trouble With Charlie (34 page)

I stood and followed it, walking toward the study. It was Sunday. Late morning. Warm—maybe summer? Yes, mid-July. I was in tan shorts and a yellow tank top. Barefoot. Toenails painted hot pink. Charlie was in the study with the door closed. Why was the door closed? It was just the two of us in the house. Maybe he was on the phone? No—someone else was there. Another voice, yelling back.

“Go fuck yourself, Charlie, you self-righteous son of a bitch—”

Derek?

“You have no idea what you’re messing—”

“Oh, but I do.” Charlie’s voice trembled, thundered. “I know exactly what and exactly who—and how to get to them.”

“What are you talking about?” Derek tried to outshout him. “You’re not—”

“And where. And why.”

“—talking about blackmail?”

Silence. They both stopped at once. I stood in the hallway, watching the door.

“I said nothing about blackmail.”

“You said everything but the word.”

More silence.

“God Almighty.” Charlie’s voice quieted, sounded grave. “This is ruinous. What have you gotten us into, Derek?”

“Me? I believe it was you who hired that bimbo—”

“Sherry’s not a bimbo—”

“And you who had the genius idea that she could back up all the files.”

All the files—Did he mean the files of the pornographic pictures? I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. But I had to listen—they’d stopped yelling, spoke softly. I strained to hear, could make out only small random phrases. Nothing that made sense. Something about dates. Decisions. Papers. Weeks—or maybe leaks? And adoption?

Adoption?

Then a third voice spoke up. “Look, I’m out of here. You two settle this between you. Just make your minds up soon. Because, if you cancel, there’ll be fees.”

The door opened in my face. A man stepped out, nodded my way, hurried down the hall to the door.

Dr. Schroeder was telling me that I’d remember everything I wanted to, that I would awaken refreshed and renewed. That I would remain relaxed all day, able to unlock my memories at will as the day progressed. And then, he counted to three.

I felt refreshed and renewed, remembering Charlie’s argument with Derek. And the third voice, too. It was probably just business, not necessarily anything nefarious. But, over dinner, I would ask Joel why he hadn’t mentioned meeting me months ago, in the hallway of my house.

I spent the next hours at home, swallowing extra pills, sitting in the room where I’d found Charlie’s body, trying for a breakthrough. Sometimes my mind tickled, as if a featherlike memory was touching it ever so lightly, just beyond the range of my consciousness. Too many fragmented images. Who would have wanted to kill Charlie? The investors, to conceal their child prostitutes? Derek, to protect the business? Sherry McBride, to protest his rejection? Or maybe, if she’d indeed copied the photo files, to blackmail the investors? Maybe Joel? No, I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to think so. But possibly. He might have sold something besides travel packages. So, even with Somerset Bradley and Sherry McBride dead, there were still at least four people with possible motives.

But the police weren’t arresting them.

I sat in the study on the new sofa, leaned back, trying to rest. Letting thoughts surface on their own. Hoping my memory would offer up something new. I sunk into the cushions, relaxing my body à la Dr. Schroeder, starting with the toes. Took slow
deep breaths. Watched dust floating in the air. Saw a knife glimmer in my own bloody hand.

I stood up, releasing a groan of self-pity. Hugging myself. Forget relaxing or trying to remember. Nothing was going to save me. I was going to jail. And, for all I knew, I deserved it—I might have killed Charlie. Please, I told my brain, let go. Let me see what you’ve hidden, no matter how bad it is. I’m going to jail anyhow. If I killed him, I might as well know it. Tell me what happened.

My brain didn’t react. I remembered nothing. Head in hands, I slumped back onto the sofa. My chest was tight. Breathing hurt.

I sat for a while. Minutes. Leaned back against the cushions. Hopeless. Drifting. Remembering my last talk with Charlie. Before we’d fought about his affair.

The money.
He’d seemed to think I’d understand.
You get all of it, Elle. Because I had no will.

I’d been appalled. “You think I killed you for your money?”

You were pissed as hell about your inheritance.

I’d explained that it hadn’t been just the inheritance.

You said the money was the last straw. And if I’m dead, you get it all, not just the half you’d get in a divorce. Unless you get convicted of killing me. Then you get nothing.

Charlie seemed to think I’d get nothing. That I’d be convicted. And, if Charlie thought I’d killed him for his money, certainly a jury would. But Charlie didn’t think that—he didn’t think anything. He was dead. I’d hallucinated that conversation, imagined it, gone over the edge. Well, why shouldn’t I? In my situation, what was the point of staying sane? And why was I thinking about Charlie’s money?

I walked in circles, worrying my hands. Stomach knotted. I pictured the blood that by now would have gravitated to Sherry McBride’s back, turning it purplish-gray. Heard the phone rang but ignored it, afraid to hear that she’d been found. Afraid to hear anything from anyone. Pacing, I finally began to replay the
argument I’d heard at Dr. Schroeder’s. Derek and Charlie yelling about blackmail. About the mess they’d gotten into. Maybe I was thinking of Charlie’s money because of that conversation—the mess the business was in. Blackmail.

The faces of the dead spun through my mind. Somerset, Sherry, Charlie.

And the face of the one person connected to them all.

I didn’t like Derek, had avoided him all week. But I’d known I’d have to confront him sooner or later. It was time.

His secretary’s name was Roxy. She was about twenty, had short red hair, blue eye shadow, pearl-polished nails. Roxy was generally spunky, but she slunk away when I burst in and demanded to see Derek. I was, after all, the partner’s widow.

Derek stood as I stormed in. “Elle, what a surprise!” He opened his arms for an embrace. I must have glowered. He aborted the hug, offering me a chair instead.

I sat. I glared.

“M and M’s?” He took a dish off his desk, held it out.

I narrowed my eyes.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” he popped a handful of candy into his mouth, took a seat opposite me on a plush leather chair that matched mine.

“I know.” I’d ignored his calls.

“How are you doing, Elle?” Derek paced himself, trying to sound sincere.

“How would you expect?”

He nodded, looked at his lap. An exaggerated expression of sympathy. “It’s been hard for me, too. But I’m glad you’ve come by. We need to talk.”

“Yes, we do.”

He waited a beat, leaned forward. “This is difficult for both of us, Elle. I don’t know where to begin—”

“How about with the naked kids?”

He started, recovered quickly. “What did you do with the—”

“With the flash drive? You mean the kiddie porn. That’s what you were looking for, right? The files you said Charlie took from the office. The confidential client information.”

Derek’s eyes shifted just slightly. He crossed his legs, put his hands together, fingertips forming an arch at his lips.

I kept going. “That was all bullshit, wasn’t it, Derek? The truth was that you were taking your clients on perverted sex trips—a pedophiles’ holiday.”

“Oh Jesus, no.” His hands slapped the arms of his chair as he cut me off. “Elle, you are dead wrong. Absolutely, completely off base. Although, given the pictures in those files, I can see where you got that impression.” A slow, snaky smirk.

I said nothing, waited for him to slither into his hole.

“Okay. So you looked at the images on the flash drive.” He tilted his head. “And you saw—what exactly? I’m not sure how to address this unless I know what you’ve seen.”

I mimicked his position, crossing my legs, placing my palms on the arms of my chair. “Enough. I saw enough to get you and your friends arrested. And you will be.”

He lost the smile, the pose. Sat forward, hissing. “The hell we will. If anyone gets arrested, Elle, from what I hear, it’s going to be you.”

I didn’t bite. Didn’t react.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He was trying to shake me up, divert my attention. “We’re talking about the kiddie porn.”

“Yes.” I stared him in the eye, not flinching.

He watched me for a moment, shifted positions in his chair, leaning forward. “Elle, clearly, you have no idea what you saw. Or what the images mean. You have no context in which to put them.”

“Context?” Was he kidding? “Sick is sick no matter how you frame it.”

“Again, you’re dead wrong.” He sat farther forward, too close. I could feel his breath on my face, smell the sweet chocolate. “Poor Elle. So confused. Just like your pain in the ass husband—sorry to speak ill of the dead. But you see, the world is far larger than what your narrow provincial views can imagine. Full of a vast array of cultures whose norms, rites, and traditions you in your self-righteous, ethnocentric naïveté would find revolting.” He leaned back, finally, lecturing, gesturing professorially. “Did you know, Elle, that there are communities who stretch their women’s lips to the size of their heads, and their necks to the length of their femurs? People who pierce pubescent boys’ penises with quills and feathers. Chinese who still bind and stunt the growth of women’s feet. There are people who circumcise their girls—often without anesthesia, using shards of glass. Mothers who circumcise baby boys with their teeth. Does any of this offend or shock you? I can go on—people who eat monkey brains and dogs. Men who practice polygamy or marry children or wed their brothers’ widows or take their nieces’ virginity—”

“What’s your point, Derek? That sometimes having sex with children is normal?”

He didn’t answer. Simply leaned back, watching me. And let his snaky grin slide across his face. “You know, Elle, it’s too bad that you were so quick to give that flash drive to the police. Given, I mean, that your own livelihood still depends on the success of this firm. Charlie wouldn’t want his former clients to be involved in a scandal.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” My voice trembled. I tried to control it. “But Charlie had limits. He wouldn’t stand for exploiting and abusing kids. That’s what you were fighting about, wasn’t it?” Suddenly, I could imagine what had happened. Derek coming after Charlie, trying to convince him to give back the files on the flash drive. Charlie refusing. “Is that why you killed him?
Because he wouldn’t stand for his company sponsoring pedophilia?”

“What?” Derek’s mouth opened wide, revealing two gold caps on the lower left. A coughlike laugh erupted from his belly. “Really? That’s what you’re saying? That
I
killed Charlie?” He shook his head. Stood, checked his watch. “Look, Elle. Nice try, but we all know who killed Charlie.” His eyes pierced me as if my guilt were an established fact, as if there were no doubt.

Derek walked back to his desk and took a seat. Folded his hands. “This has been fun, but I have an appointment in a minute. So let’s wrap this up. You’ve made entirely false assumptions, Elle. What you saw on that flash drive was merely a record of a worthy attempt by well-meaning clients to rescue some exploited children from abroad.”

What?

“Those sex shots showed the children’s former lives as child prostitutes. Our clients were attempting to pay cash for their freedom—essentially to buy them from their pimps—and to legally adopt them and bring them here to the U.S., so they could develop normal, or at least seminormal lives.”

I blinked at him, silent. Remembered the photos. Some had seemed purely innocent. Men, holding hands of kids eating ice cream. Walking with them near the Kremlin. Not all the photos were sexual. Could Derek be telling the truth? Had I misinterpreted everything? I couldn’t be sure, couldn’t remember seeing adult faces in the sex shots. If their faces weren’t shown, there was no proof that Derek’s investors had actually abused the children.

“I can see where you’d jump to the conclusion that you did. But, in fact, by causing all this ruckus, you’ve probably done nothing more than embarrass and frighten off some very wealthy, well-intentioned potential adoptive parents, costing the firm a ton of money.” His tone was condescending. Cold. “Hell.
I’ll be lucky if none of them sues us. That is, if you leave any of them alive long enough to sue us.”